Conner Bryant
"Best get out now. Once they enter the trees, anyone still here is going to be easy pickings." ''- ''Conner, offering to stay behind and buy time for the rest of his group to escape Lynch's bandits. Conner David Bryant is an Original Character and the protagonist of FUBAR and Inferno. Before the apocalypse he was a member of the Georgia National Guard along with his best friend Farley. Three days into the apocalypse Conner's squad was mobilized to evacuate civilians from small towns on the road to the army's holdout in Atlanta, GA. One week in, his unit was mobilized to Macon, GA, to evacuate a group of civilians trapped in the Everett Drugstore. Pre-Apocalypse Conner David Bryant was born in Statesboro, GA, the younger of two siblings. His mother died during childbirth, leaving his father to raise two children alone. Growing up, Conner was shy and introverted. At five years old he and his sister, Lucy, met who would become their best friend, Eugene Farley Reynolds. Preferring to go by "Farley," he was one of the few people Conner ever opened up to. Throughout his life Conner suffered from what was described by loved ones as "anger issues" and occasional violent impulses. While never serious, these imuplses caused a deal of concern among his loved ones. Conner himself was never aware of how far reaching these issues were. After graduating High School in Statesboro, Conner enlisted in the Marine Corps alongside Farley. After failing the entrance exams Conner was rejected, and Farley voluntarily dropped out to be with his friend. Conner enlisted in the Army, and once again failed the entrance exams for reasons that were not revealed to him. As with the Marines, Farley decided to be with his friend and turned down the recruiter. With no other alternatives Conner attempted to enlist in the Georgia National Guard, with similar results. Farley stepped in and convinced the recruiting officer, with help from Sergeant Albert Keenan, to accept Conner's application in spite of his issues under the condition that Conner would never see combat. While serving in Keenan's squad Conner attained the rank of Private First Class. Initially infuriated that his unit wouldn't be deployed overseas, Conner sunk into depression at the thought of being unable to serve in battle as his father had before he and his sister were born. After several months of tedious drills and unexciting assignments such as disaster relief, Conner would finally get his chance to fight. Post-Apocalypse Early Days Three days after the dead began to walk Conner and Farley were deployed along with their squad to rescue civilians living in central Georgia. Over the next several days the squad participated in half a dozen battles against the undead until only a little over half of them remained. One week in they were deployed to downtown Macon, GA to rescue a group of civilians trapped in the Everett Drugstore. The squad was unable to reach their destination and took heavy casualties before being extracted to Robins Air Force Base in the nearby town of Warner-Robin. At the base, Conner stumbled across a mechanic named Mark who informed him of the last stand at Outpost Echo, a military roadblock set just outside of Macon to keep the highway to Atlanta open. Soon after the squad was deployed to Echo to help the defenders keep the highway secure. Upon their arrival several defenders retreated from the perimeter in order to escape aboard their helicopter. The gap in the defenses was quickly breached by the horde and Echo fell into anarchy as it was swarmed. During their escape, another member of Conner's squad was killed by jumping on a grenade, saving Conner's life. Upon reaching the helicopter Conner and Farley witnessed a shootout between their squad leader Keenan, a new recruit named Carter, and the squad of deserters. Dispatching the deserters with a surprise attack the remnants of the squad rushed aboard the helicopter. Farley forced the pilot, John Kelley, to take off at gunpoint when Kelley's copilot failed to return to the aircraft. Carter, killed in the firefight, reanimated and attacked Kelley causing the helicopter to crash in downtown Macon. The only survivors of the crash were Conner and Farley. The two left Kelley to reanimate instead of risking the noise of putting him down and made for Atlanta, the army's final holdout. Upon reaching Atlanta the two found the city in ruins. As Conner began to despair, fellow survivor Elizabeth "Beth" Hayes found the two of them and brought them to her group. 300 Days In Conner and Farley survived with Beth's group for months in the wilderness, periodically raiding National Guard supply bases that the two fromer soldiers knew the location of. This kept the group stocked with adequate food and ammunition for the better part of a year. During that time they aquired a new member who called himself "Tanner" and quickly became their leader through popular demand. It was also during these months that a rift began to form between Conner and Farley after the latter sacrificed the life of a fellow group member for the rest of them to escape the city. Around 300 days in the group came into contact with Daniel Lynch, the elader of a militia that turned to banditry. During an intense firefight with the bandits Conner was captured and brought back to their camp for interrogation. Unbeknownst to him, Farley had also been captured but instead elected to join them in exchange for his life. At Lynch's camp Conner was tortured for information by a sadistic bandit named Willard. When Conner refused to speak Farley was sent in by Lynch to prove his loyalty to his new group by extracting the answers from his friend. During the interrogation Farley cut off three of his former friend's fingers, relenting only when Conner passed out due to pain and bloodloss. Conner regained consciousness several minutes after Willard and Farley left and escaped the camp with Willard's machete, killing Willard in the process. During his escape he encountered a barn filled with walkers that was used by the bandit group as an intimidation tactic against prisoners who refused to speak. After returning to the remains of his group and discovering Tanner's past association with Lynch, Conner devised a strategy to release the walkers from the barn while the bandits were distracted and have them overrun from within. During the attack on Lynch's compound, fellow group member Jen was bitten before destroying the fence that marked the perimeter and luring a herd down onto the camp. The bandit defense collapsed immediately as they were simultaneously attacked from within and without. The survivors split into two groups, one making a last stand in the cental house while another fled through the gates. Addiction ''"The Conner from before the world went to shit would be sick at what I’ve done. Or maybe he wouldn’t, maybe I still am him and he’d be proud of what I did, and that’s the scariest thing I can think of and I’m terrified because I just don’t know!” '' - Conner to Beth about his fears that his addiction to killing predated the Apocalypse Conner stormed the house alone with a machete, finally succumbing completely to his anger and the violent impulses he had been a victim of all his life and losing control of himself. Inside the house he massacred the surprised defenders, including his friend Farley. In a brief duel with Lynch, Conner disarmed the bandit leader and killed him slowly, taking a perverse pleasure in his drawn out death. After standing triumphant in the middle of the slaughter, smiling, he was found by Beth who managed to bring him back to his senses. Realizing the horrible atrocity he had gladly taken part in, Conner fell into a nearly suicidal depression as he lamented the possibility that he had always been a natural killer, even before the apocalypse. Only Beth's determined effort to help him recover brought him back from the brink of madness and caused him to vow to walk the difficult road to recovery. Several days after dispatching Lynch, Beth and Conner encountered two other survivors named Roman and Clive. Even as Conner struggled to surpress his urge to kill, the two new survivors joined with them and began to form a plan to head North toward the rumored safe haven known as Wellington. Conner would struggle with his addiction for the rest of his life, and nearly relapsed several times on the journey to Wellington. Death - Killed by *One of Carver's men *Tanner (Out of Mercy) After finding more survivors while heading North, the group became lost in the woods of North Carolina. Low on food they stumbled across several fish traps near a sandbar in the middle of a river. Upon beginning to extract the fish the group was ambushed by Carver's men, led by one of his soldiers by the name of Johnny. During the firefight Conner killed several of Carver's men until he was shot by one of Carver's men, who was providing covering fire for Johnny and the rest of their group from the treeline. Conner was hit in the chest and neck and collapsed before bleeding out in Roman's arms. After the firefight Conner was left by the river to reanimate. His body was one of the many found by Nick, Pete, and Clementine shortly after the shootout. One week later Conner, after turning into a walker, would be discovered by Tanner and put out of his misery.